Spark Capital Raises $450 Million For Its 4th Fund To See Its Startups All The Way Through To Exit

Alyson Shontell, provided by

Published 11:54 pm, Monday, February 25, 2013

Spark Capital, a Boston-based venture capital firm, has raised $450 million for its its fourth and largest fund to date.

The fund is about $100 million larger than Spark's last. General Partner Todd Dagres says that's because Spark has "figured out its sweet spot." It wants to ramp up its efforts and see companies all the way through, from start to finish.

"We thought seed stage startups would have a higher mortality rate, but more actually are graduating from seed rounds to Series A's," Says Dagres. "We like to follow deals all the way through the life cycle from beginning to end."

One-third of Spark's investments will be seed stage; many others will be follow-on investments. Spark invests in about 30 startups per fund. The firm has invested in consumer tech, commerce, cloud and advertising companies such as Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr and Warby Parker.

But the consumer tech sector, where some of Spark's most notable investments have been, has been called a dead space. The aftermath of Facebook's IPO has made some investors weary of social platforms. Dagres thinks there's still money to be made in this sector though. As proof, he pointed to Pinterest's recent $200 million round, which valued it at $2.5 billion.

"Before, people were saying, 'If Facebook is worth $100 billion [pre-IPO], then why can't this company be worth $5 billion? People didn't really know where the top was," says Dagres. "It's not as crazy now. I don't see the bloom off the rose at all."

Since its founding eight years ago, Spark Capital has roughly $1.5 billion under management across its four funds. It has a team of nine people, with a few members based in New York.